A transatlantic rowing expedition carrying a quartet of rowers, including a Canadian 2008 Olympic gold medalist, suffered a "catastrophic capsize" Saturday, leading to an early end to the voyage.
Former men’s eight rower Adam Kreek was part of the four-man team rescued after the distress signal on their 29-foot boat was activated early Saturday morning. Kreek was making the trans-Atlantic trip alongside fellow B.C. man Markus Pukonen, and Americans Jordan Hanssen and Pat Flemming.
The rowers were found safe after their life raft was spotted by a U.S. Coast Guard airplane, voyage spokesperson Greg Spooner said.
"We are extremely grateful for the services of the United States Coast Guard, and all other agencies involved in the successful location and rescue of the four rowers," Spooner wrote on the expedition’s blog. "They put their lives at risk to save ours."
Spooner said he was contacted by the U.S. Coast Guard in San Juan, Puerto Rico at 3:50 a.m. PT Saturday when the station received a distress signal from the “James Robert Hanssen” boat. The overturned vessel, which was designed to right itself if it capsized, was about 650 kilometres north of Puerto Rico.
On Friday, the crew reported on Twitter that a lightning storm had passed overhead the day before.
"Jordan’s beard was rising to the sky and glowing, and both antennas were glowing at their tips. Lots of loud thunder and intense eye-shattering lightning. Wow. Crazy freaky," the tweet said.
Dubbed the Canadian Wildlife Federation Africa to the Americas Expedition, the 6,700-kilometre journey from Dakar, Senegal to Miami, Florida ended 73 days into the 80-day trip. The mishap follows years of preparation and planning.
Dominic Kahn, head coach of Toronto’s Bayside Rowing Club and a friend of Kreek’s, said the quartet was well-prepared for any difficulties at sea.
The rowers had trained in the choppy waters off Vancouver Island and they had conducted an intense, 24-hour capsize training exercise with Navy SEALS near Puget Sound in Washington, Kahn told CTV News Channel Sunday.
Kahn said Kreek’s wife told him over the phone Sunday morning that their training simply “kicked in” once they’d realized they had tipped.
“It’s very sudden and then they just went into autopilot,” Kahn said. “She even mentioned they did some visualization -- just like an Olympic athlete would visualize what to do for their race; they did visualizations as to what would happen if they ever were to capsize.”
Kreek has been training to handle such an ordeal since his teenage years when he took up the sport, Kahn said, and one of the other crew members had previously competed in a Cross-Atlantic race.
“So definitely they weren’t inexperienced rowers,” Kahn said. “These were the best of the best doing a really great thing.”
The trip, which coincided with the International Year of Water Co-operation by the United Nations, was not only an attempt on a world rowing record, but was also intended to be a scientific journey.
"You build an intimate understanding of the vastness of the ocean, the vastness of the planet and the fragility within it," Kreek told CTV News last month, on Day 57 of the trip.
The boat was carrying scientific equipment and the crew was gathering data as part of an initiative sponsored by the Canadian Wildlife Federation.
